1. Field of the Invention
The field of the invention is data processing, or, more specifically, methods, apparatus, and products for administering computer processor execution of BIOS code.
2. Description of Related Art
The development of the EDVAC computer system of 1948 is often cited as the beginning of the computer era. Since that time, computer systems have evolved into extremely complicated devices. Today's computers are much more sophisticated than early systems such as the EDVAC. Computer systems typically include a combination of hardware and software components, application programs, operating systems, processors, buses, memory, input/output devices, and so on. As advances in semiconductor processing and computer architecture push the performance of the computer higher and higher, more sophisticated computer software has evolved to take advantage of the higher performance of the hardware, resulting in computer systems today that are much more powerful than just a few years ago.
Processors of computers today typically execute Basic Input/Output Services (‘BIOS’) code upon startup. In many computers two modules of the BIOS code are present in Read-Only Memory (‘ROM’), a primary BIOS code and a recovery or backup BIOS code. If execution of the primary BIOS code fails upon startup, the processor is restarted and attempts to execute the recovery BIOS code. In most computers the primary and recovery BIOS code are of the same size and together fill available memory of the ROM. As such, the memory address of the primary BIOS code is at the ‘top’ of the memory, the first available memory address, and the memory address of recovery BIOS code is a halfway point in the ROM, that is, in the middle of addressable memory. Such addresses are hard-programmed into the processor prior to typical operation of the computer.
From time to time, however, during software and hardware development of electrical circuits as one example, such BIOS code may be altered by BIOS developers, increasing in size. As such, the size of the ROM in which the BIOS code is disposed must also be increased. The addresses of the primary and recovery BIOS code, previously hard-programmed into the processor are no longer correct for the ROM of increased size. Each change of ROM size therefore typically requires a corresponding reprogramming of the processor with new addresses for the BIOS code. Such reprogramming is inefficient in software and hardware development.